


glued together moments

by starlight_sugar



Category: Neoscum (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 02:39:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: Do you want to leave a note for our bakers?hello! I’m buying dessert 4 my roommate (very nice guy) who just got dumped, would one of u like to be his valentine? or his friend! That’s good 2! Thank u <3 !!!





	glued together moments

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. This was originally posted on Tumblr on December 6th and is being cross-posted upon request. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from [Anxious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apBHFRPqeN4) by Hippo Campus.

“Tech.” Pox flicks a little crumpled-up ball of paper directly at his face. It bounces off his nose. He doesn’t even react. Pox pouts, and he doesn’t react to that either, which is even worse. “Teeeeeeech.”

“Not now,” Tech says, which is completely unfair.

“That’s completely unfair,” Pox announces. “You’re moping again!”

He sighs. “Yeah, Pox, I’m moping again. It’s almost like-”

“It’s almost like you’re no fun anymore! We should do something fun.”

Tech fixes Pox with a look. Pox can guess what this look means. It means something boring and sad like “Pox, my girlfriend dumped me three days before Valentine’s Day, and even though we were only sort of dating, it still hurts, and I’m not in the mood to try and do fun things without her.” Pox understands in theory, but in practice Tech is absolutely no fun to be around right now.

And, okay, she wants her roommate to be happy. So she needs an idea to make him happy. Like getting him a present. Or getting him food.

Pox jumps down from her bed, which is lofted so high she can barely sit upright. “I have an idea to make you happy,” she announces. “I’m going to order us dessert.”

“Dessert,” Tech repeats. He doesn’t seem excited at all about the prospect of chocolate. Pox’s heart clenches a little bit. He must really be heartbroken if he doesn’t want chocolate. “Why?”

“Because it’s Valentine’s Day, and everyone should get chocolate!” She wanders over to her desk and opens up her laptop. “There has to be somewhere that delivers dessert, for Christ’s sakes.”

“Pox,” Tech starts, but the spark of annoyance is the most life she’s heard in his voice in a couple days.

She claps her hands. “Don’t you think there should be dessert delivery? We should start that business! We’d be rich!”

“Neither of us own cars.”

“We can hire people!”

“Neither of us can bake.”

“I can bake!”

Tech sits up in bed, which is practically a miracle. He’s glaring at her, but he’s still sitting up for what might be the first time all day. “You’re not allowed to bake, we decided this.”

Pox gasps and clutches her chest as dramatically as she can. “Tech! I’m an incredible baker!”

“You lit the dorm kitchen on fire.”

“It was a mistake!”

“It’s happened three times.”

“It was an accident all three times!”

“You were trying to boil water all three times,” Tech says, like that’s his trump card, and it is, but she resents it all the same. “Besides, we don’t have to execute the idea, we just have to sell it to someone who can, and then we get money because it’s our IP.”

Pox frowns. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just don’t.” She goes back to her laptop and types in “cookie delivery now please,” because Google might give her better results if she says please. Sure enough, a local bakery pops up, and they do deliveries. “Ooh! I’ve got something! What do you want?”

“Pox, I can’t-”

“My treat,” she says firmly. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Tech goes quiet for a long minute. When Pox glances over, he’s staring at her with scrutiny, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle or something.

Pox coughs loudly. “Also, I’m sad that that sorority girl didn’t call me back,” she says, trying to give him an out before he has to deal with more of his feelings. He can deal with hers. It’s only fair, or something. “And I am in the mood to buy things to feel better.”

“Retail therapy,” Tech says, but he’s smiling slightly now, and Pox can relax a little bit. “I told you not to trust her.”

“But all of the other ones have been so nice,” Pox sighs, turning to her laptop. “Delta Beta Lambda, it just rolls off the tongue, it’s so lovely, isn’t it?”

Tech mouths the words to himself a couple times, whispering slightly. “No,” he says at last, and Pox can’t help but snort, hunching her shoulders as she laughs. “Greek is an ugly language.”

“But that’s just the alphabet, innit? Imagine if we had a group called… called…” Pox screws up her face, trying to imagine the ugliest combination of letters. “The NSA or something.”

“Pox, the NSA is a real thing.”

“Is it a fraternity?”

Tech shakes his head. “I think it’s a sports thing.”

“Ew.” Pox wrinkles her nose and clicks through to the menu. “Do you want cookies? Chocolate chunk? White chocolate cranberry?”

“Lala loved cranberries,” Tech sighs. Pox has to fight the urge to bury her head in her hands. She was so close, so close! But he’s already sinking back into bed.

Pox cranes her neck to try and see his face, but he’s already putting a pillow on top of his head. Damn it. “Tech?”

“Get me whatever,” he says, muffled by the pillow. “Just wake me up when it’s here.”

“Tech,” she sighs, but he rolls over instead of answering.

Pox bites her lip and looks at her computer screen. She and Tech were randomly assigned roommates, but he’s probably her best friend here at uni, one of the only people who understands what it’s like to be far away from home. She’d been so happy when he dated Lala, because it seemed like he was coming out of his shell. And now he’s back to square one.

But chocolate fixes everything. So she starts clicking on desserts at random: a pie for her, brownies for them to share, a box of cookies for him, nothing with cranberries or walnuts or anything else that could potentially remind him of Lala. A triple chocolate cake, which she will share if and only if he asks, which he won’t, so it’s really just for her. She has money squirreled away for things like this, and she thinks it’s time to splurge, so she barely spares a second to make sure that the total is less than her rainy day fund before breezing through the order.

But then there’s another field blinking up at her, one that actually makes her pause. One that she could use.

_Do you want to leave a note for our bakers?_

Pox chews on her lip, thinking it over. Ordinarily maybe she’d say something about how she appreciates the chocolate, or just ask them a silly question, but this is something she’s doing for Tech. She should do something nice for him, right? Something that’ll stop him from being so torn up about Lala. Maybe he needs a date! It is Valentine’s Day, after all.

She flutters her fingers on her desk and then starts typing:  _hello! I’m buying dessert 4 my roommate (very nice guy) who just got dumped, would one of u like to be his valentine? or his friend! That’s good 2! Thank u <3 !!!_

There. That’ll help.

#

She spends about forty minutes fooling around on her phone, playing Candy Crush and Snapchatting all of the DBL ladies in her classes. They all ignore her, because sororities are like that. Maybe Pox should rush next year. Just to surprise them.

And then her phone rings, and she nearly drops it in excitement. “Hello!”

“Hey, uh, is this…” there’s a pause as the guy checks something. “Pox? Who just ordered maybe the most baked goods I’ve ever seen?”

“That’s me!” Pox stretches a foot up and starts tracing circles on the ceiling. “Are you in the lobby?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I just want to double check about your note.”

“What about it?”

“Are you trying to set your roommate up with me?”

She sticks her tongue out and starts drawing swirls with her toe. “Not really, you know? I just want him to meet someone new. And you’re new to him, probably. What’s your name?”

“Zenith.” He pauses. “Most of my friends call me Z.”

“Excellent! Hello, Z.” She switches feet to start slashing through the invisible spirals with her other foot. “Would you like to meet my friend Tech? He’s a little shy, but he could use more friends, and he’s a nice guy most of the time.”

“Can he… hear you?”

Pox spares a glance at Tech’s bed. He’s not moving. “I think he’s sleeping.”

“You think?”

“Well, I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. I’m just trying to get him to meet people! He doesn’t know enough people.”

Z pauses to mull that over. “Okay, sure. Well, I’m in the lobby, so whenever you want to come down-”

“Of course!” Pox rolls off her bed, landing neatly on her feet, and stretches out to jostle Tech’s bed with one foot. “We’ll be down in a second, thank you!”

“Yeah, thanks,” Z says, and hangs up. Pox beams. She’s going to have to tip him very, very well.

“Was that dessert?” Tech asks from underneath the pillow. He sounds groggy, like he really was asleep, and Pox is a little relieved.

“Yes, Tech, we have to go!” She pushes at his mattress a little harder. “I need you to come, I ordered too much to carry by myself, come on!”

Tech groans, but he rolls out of bed and rubs at one eye with the heel of his hand. “I’m not putting on shoes for this.”

“Neither am I,” Pox says cheerfully. “Let’s go, come on, I want my pies!”

“Pies, plural?”

“Pie singular, desserts plural.”

“Great,” Tech says, and yawns as he says it. Pox loves him, very much. “Let’s go.”

He’s quiet as they amble down the stairwell. Tech is at least wearing socks, which Pox forgot, so her toes are cold by the time they get to the lobby. Tech stifles another yawn as she looks around, scanning the room, and then locks eyes with the guy standing by the door. He has a stack of dessert boxes on the floor next to him that’s nearly as high as his knees.

Pox elbows Tech. “That’s him!”

Tech follows where she’s pointing and then freezes. “That’s him?”

“Look at the boxes, it has to be!”

“That’s the guy from my intro philosophy class.”

Pox frowns. He’s mentioned intro philosophy guy a couple of times. Descriptions have included mysterious, edgy, cool, and “he looks like he owns a special keyboard just for gaming and it’s kind of fucking hot.” She wouldn’t have used any of those for the guy standing by the door with a stack of pastry boxes and an undercut, looking slightly uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t have dated Lala, either, so maybe she and Tech just have different taste.

“Let’s go get our food,” she says, and fastens a hand around Tech’s arm. He makes a noise of protest, but she drags him forward resolutely. Zenith already promised that he would give Tech his number - or did he? she can’t remember, but he has to, if they’re friends already - so there’s no way for this to go wrong.

Z looks between them, slightly confused, before landing on Tech. “Intro philosophy?”

“Yeah,” Tech says, cheeks flushed. “Yeah, uh, my roommate here has a sweet tooth.”

“Hello!” Pox waves before fishing in her pocket. “We needed dessert today.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.” Z nudges the stack with his toe. He’s wearing some very cool boots. Pox likes his boots a lot. “You paid online, right?”

“Yes, I did!” She finally pulls out a twenty dollar bill, the last cash she has on her. “This is for you.”

Z takes it, looking bemused. “Thanks.”

“Holy shit,” Tech whispers. “How much dessert is this?”

“It’s enough for today.” Pox bends down and grabs the first couple of boxes off the stack. “It was good meeting you, Zenith, I’ll let you and Tech catch up.”

“He didn’t say his name,” Tech says suspiciously. “What are you-”

“Actually,” Z says, and Pox and Tech both stare at him. He’s standing as cool and casual as can be, but Pox can definitely tell that he’s nervous about something. “I wouldn’t mind that. Talking to you, I mean.”

“Oh.” Tech straightens up in surprise. “O-okay?”

Z shrugs. “Yeah, I need to talk to someone about that crazy shit Marco was saying the other day in class, you know?”

Tech laughs in surprise. “Yeah, that guy… he’s something, isn’t he?”

Pox nudges Tech as she turns around. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” she says, and heads back to the dormitory door. As she reaches it, she glances over her shoulder, fully intending to mouth something at Z, but he’s already talking animatedly to Tech. And Tech is standing a little straighter, looking more like himself than he has in days.

Pox smiles to herself as she keys herself back into the dorm. She knew that ordering dessert would be a great idea. It fixes everything.

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based on a thing that really happened to me. [No, really.](http://pervincetosscobble.tumblr.com/post/139329736297)
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


End file.
